Pizza Express in South Oxfordshire

Food was good and arrived quickly, but the staff were really unfriendly, verging on being quite rude which spoilt things. This was Monday 14th April at about 19:00.

Had to wait to be seated 15 mins when restaurant wasn’t even busy, the food took 40 mins to arrive and the worst pizza we have had, never again

Good pizza for a quick sit down meal.

It was good after driving to sit and be served. Very relaxing

They don't accept coupons from truck drivers, maybe OK, but you can't eat pizza for Tickets

Went for a meal with the family for our son’s birthday treat. This is the closest pizza express to us and sadly it will be the last time we visit. The staff were so miserable, I’ve never felt so awkward and watched while we ate! Food was fine and service was quick thankfully so we could get out! Didn’t realise they hadn’t even given us the kids meals for free as is stated on their website this time of year and also they don’t honour blue light discount! Totally lied to us about that as it says they should on their website website too. So a meal was quite expensive and the staff were utterly miserable. Won’t be back and I think head office should definitely go in and check why the staff are so unhappy! Also, maybe honour blue light, that’s pretty poor.

Last time I went to pizza express was in 2011. A lot of things have changed in this years but I would say that is still a dicent fast food. This one in particular was alright, not busy so I got my order taken quick enough and the food was on my table in few minutes. I like the idea that they give you an aprox of how many calories a dish has. Pizza was so and so and the price slightly high.

I hate leaving bad reviews but I would hope that head office may take notice for this branch as it’s well below par. Badly cooked pizza, staff that have no interest, Bland flavours and really just a bad experience. 2nd time I’ve been here and will sadly be the last. This place is the perfect stop off when I have my kids for dinner and my favourite restaurant chain. This time I had to send my food back as it was uncooked dough and the member of staff after replacing it didn’t even bother asking if the 2nd replacement pizza was ok and whether I was happy. Needs a shakeup as this is no better than a fast food burger king or McDonald’s in my opinion.

Stopped for lunch on the way to Cheshire. The restaurant was almost empty so we thought we would get a quick service and be back on the road, how wrong were we, we were there over 1.5 hours because of the abysmal service. We definitely wouldn't go there again.

service isn't great. I was greeted with 'yes?' when I walked in - no smile, no hello, no good afternoon as well as other issues throughout my visit. Brownie and macchiato are both delicious.

Lovely place for a family dinner, great service, friendly team

A bit noisy with music also playing. Otherwise fine.

The service from all the staff here was really poor. All were in fact rude. Our order was incorrect, the calzone was small and i had to clean my own plates away as I could not get the attention of any of the staff. 4 waiters and only 12 tables of customers. I had to ask for a glass of water three times. No check in to see how the food was, no thank you at the end. One of the poorest experiences in a restaurant I have had.

Had a good experience veg pizza was good but mozzarella sticks are best avoided. Service was good thank you Natalia

Natalia was very polite and welcoming, had a lovely time celebrating my husbands birthday, will definitely come again due to the warm welcoming I received

I must say this was my best experience in PizzaExpress, the manager Bes Nik was so kind with my 3 years daughter it was her birthday he gave her ginger man from the Xmas tree and made her so happy

Staff unfriendly and unwelcoming, looks very miserable. Very slow service but very quick in taking our plates away the second we finished eating, not even asking if we are finished or not. Then he gave us the receipt straight after that for payment as if rushing to get us out there quickly. The pizza was very soggy…. Not recommending it to anyone…

Most motorway services offer the same food outlets. Opting for Pizza Express was a welcome change and we were not disappointed. The food was delicious and served quickly. Definitely better than a burger!!

Go and buy a frozen pizza from the services and build a fire in the car park. You'll have a better chance of actually eating a pizza than trying this place.

Amazing services. Pizza was so delicious.

For the First Time I Seen Pizza Express on the to good to go app and told the lads from work saying this is new and I bet it's good. but was Extremely Disappointed Yea I only Paid £5.45p for the to good to go but the whole experience was terrible I went there at 8pm the girl took my phone 📱 away to put the code through the till that took a while and I have never had to do that before then I sat at a table for 17 mins only to be handed a small Lasagne type tray not what i expected or hoped for So this was my First and Definitely my Last at the Pizza Express at Oxford Services M40 Junction 8 would not recommend 👎

Good food but sulky staff and painfully slow service.

I love this place, I hate the fact that people treat restaurant like this as a sandwich place where they can get their food in 5 min, must change your mentality otherwise use Waitrose or get your pack lunch and sit on the main site, always happy to be here, very friendly people and delicious food, will always come back.

Very delicious food and the team is very friendly

Nice and very clean looking restaurant, I love my pollo pesto

So I’m going in with a 4 here as I couldn’t see the value in a Pizza Express at the Oxford Services but now I have small kids… it really was a life saver to break up a long journey and get them lunch. Now service wise these guys need a little support, we asked to try some wine and essentially we were given 3 small glasses of wine..not a problem for us but a taster was only required however food was decent and overall we’d appreciate the teams efforts.

Amazing pizza, exceptional service, one unforgettable experience, well done to the team and the main manager, It's not just a pizza place, it's a moment of pure joy.

The waiter was extremely rude, didn't do my order properly nor did he speak to me in a nice way. When I came back because a part of my order was missing, instead of solving the problem the waiter blamed me for not speaking loud enough when I repeated the order 3times. And he told me to MOVE away from him he needs space, which he already has the space he needed, I found that extremely disrespectful. Then when I moved away from him, he said he couldn't hear me and wants me to speak louder.The attitude of his was ridiculous. Would probably never come back here again.

I recently visited and was pleasantly surprised by the exceptional service from one of the staff members, an asian gentleman glasses. His attention to detail and friendly demeanor made the experience truly enjoyable. The pizza was delicious, Overall the visit exceeded my expectations, thanks in large part to his outstanding hospitality.

Nicely done. Engaging staff It is just so good to have a full service restaurant on a motorway service station Well done Isabella and your colleague FOH Nice work in the Kitchen too

Worst customer service ever experienced in my life.

Terrible service. Not enough staff. Took 2 hours to have a meal. Pasta was poor - kid’s bolognese was badly cooked and there was no meat in the sauce; cannelloni was very sloppy.

One of the worst pizza of my life. I had a Margherita. I am italian, and I've had thousands in my life. Well, this one was by far the worst: not only the tomato sauce and mozzarella were tasteless, the dough was undercooked, but also it was SMALL. Literally a child pizza. My boyfriend had it worse, and got a calzone with some weird salty besciamella like sauce in it. The staff was also not great: not kind, not caring, no questions, totally disinterested. On top of that, it was seriously too expensive, even for british standards. Ragazzi, state alla larga da questo posto

Terrible, stay away! The most disgusting pizzas I have ever been served. The dough was leathery and tasteless, the same goes for the meager amount of ingredients. You are paying over £15 for a child's-sized pizza. Personnel here couldn't crack a smile to save their own lives & the server just put the to be paid amount on the machine and then walked away from us. Even for a roadside restaurant, this is abysmal. The nearby burger King holds itself to higher culinary standards than this place!

Avoid spending your hard earned cash at this place. We were met by a male on Saturday evening and shown to a table without even a smile or eye contact. He flung the menus and the allergen menu down on the table and walked away. So we did too! We walked straight out - and this isn't the first time either. It happened last year, we hoped it would have improved but sadly it hasn't. Wake up Pizza Express and do something.

Very good food at reasonable prices.

Not a good experience. Just had a meal here and the service was POOR. The servers were not friendly, or helpful, and appeared disinterested. The man that met us at the door and seated us, did not say hello, or smile. The servers need hospitality training. The food was okay. When spending money on eating out, it is very disappointing to have such poor service. Also, just read on a response from another review that extra parking time can be provided by Pizza Express, we mentioned our concern around parking to our server but she did not mention this - again disappointing, as we had to leave in a hurry due to the parking limitations.

Not sure what the point of this restaurant is when they can’t get the order right, the service is abysmal, and the staff are absolutely miserable. Staff seem annoyed that you walk into the restaurant even when they have tables available, they seem annoyed when you order - no smiles, no politeness, no hospitality or customer service. They are utterly disinterested in allergies or intolerances despite going through the motions of asking the question and handing over an allergen menu, as shown by still serving the dish with the allergen. Waited a long time for them to remake the dish. They did not cut the pizza for a child as requested. Had to wait and ask for basic condiments and black pepper. Everything took a long time and staff are actively ignoring customers. Overall, what a miserable restaurant that we paid £80 for. No service charge was ever deserved for this experience.

Over half an hour before anyone would come to us (and only when we went to get someone) Two starters of three were forgotten. One main forgotten. Not sure why we ordered as they didn't know what we'd ordered anyway.

Don't bother eating here. Go somewhere else. Got served by this guy who looked like he wants to quit his job. The pasta in the carbonara was burnt and lacking taste very bland and the pizza was so oily it made us sick afterwards.

I didn't get service; I got served. It might be that the owners see this as just a motorway services eatery, but I am a local resident - who could come back often. Service can always be worthwhile. Nothing really wrong, but not really right either.

Pleasant staff, but was extremely ill after eating the American hot Romano pizza. Now can’t do the marathon I am entered for today!!! Avoid unless you want to lose a lot of weight quickly.

Awful experience. Long wait for food, with no apology. Desultory, disinterested service. Dirty toilets. Really surprising from a Pizza Express.

I am writing to express my dissatisfaction with the management skills of Ms. Natalia, the assistant manager at the M40 branch. During my recent visit, I was disappointed by her rude behavior and lack of customer service skills. Her disrespectful conduct caused distress to my wife, and as a result, we have decided not to return to this branch until Ms. Natalia is replaced by a more competent manager. I hope that this matter will be addressed promptly to ensure a positive experience for all guests in the future. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Had to wait a long time, but was rewarded with a top calzone.

For a motorway service station environment it's actually very good

This was a total waste of money and time. Waiting 40 minutes for tap water (after I have acknowledged the server again) and one hour for 2 poorly-made and small calzone (18 pounds each for some semi-cooked dough, bechamel sauce without any taste, 3 soured yellow cherry tomatoes and barely any chicken) and some "polenta chips" (£6 for 8 chips in total without much flavour on them). £42 wasted, down the drain as this restaurant does not know how to cook. After this, I went to chopstix to eat for half the price and I was very satisfied with the food. Do not try pizza express from this service (I have done already this mistake for you).

We had to wait for ages for my grandsons dessert about an hour. We kept asking. It wasn't even busy. Service poor. Prices expensive food not worth price.

Management apparently don’t want HGV drivers in the restaurant. The food is obviously delivered by HGV drivers and the attitude of staff is now well known around the industry. I would probably give this place a wide berth.

Stopped here to break our journey. The food was good although I thought it was a little over priced. Although it is called express we spent nearly 2 hours here and barely avoided having to pay for exceeding the 2 hour parking limit. (In fairness we did have 8 in our party but the delay was more than what I thought was reasonable).

Two stars for service only because a manager spoke with us even thou our English is not great. However a phrase "we don't want your kind in here" was used so that's truly great, keep up the great customer service!

I cannot tell you how bad our experience was at this restaurant. It was shocking. The staff are rude. Uninterested and unhelpful. The man who came to the door had no customer service skills, no smile. No greeting and was slamming chairs around. I asked for a gluten free menu and was instantly told there wasn’t one but didn’t tell me what I should do. Sat down and menus were almost thrown at us whilst the short somewhat rotund man slammed and banged around. Clearly not happy with life! I asked for glass of rose but got red. We were eventually served by “heather” who was scruffy and miserable. We asked for all starters and mains to come at the same time in which they didn’t. The food was subpar in comparison to other pizza expresses. My gluten free Fiorentina pizza was served to me with egg shell on top and when I told heather she apologised and stood by the table for 1 minute then left without saying a word. 10 minutes later our sides of polenta fries which were ordered at the same time as the rest, arrived barely cooked having been sat on the side for 10 minutes. We then took our sides home to properly cook with no mention of desserts our how our meal was. I have never been so appalled by a restaurant and can not believe how little training the staff have had in customer service skills. I’m a 100% certain everyone else felt the same.

Disastrous experience. Wrong order put through. Missing items from standard pizza. Slow service. No garlic butter on garlic bread. Took so long we got a fine for being over 2 hours in car park.

Underwhelming food at high prices served by staff (eventually) who seemed like they didn't want to be there.

I think it was under new management when I visited with the family. So lots of room for improvement. Lots of potential, just need to concentrate on some key aspects and then they will be flying. Good luck with the business.

Service was fast and polite. The food was what we expected but with it being a service station, atmosphere is not a concern.

Food very nice but the service is not quite my expectations, table not cleaned on time, no salt, pepper and cutlery on the table

Rubbish experience. The restaurant was almost empty and staff walked past us multiple times. When we were finally seated, the staff, again, ignored us for a solid 20 minutes. No smiles, no pleasantries, barely any recognition. It took so long, we just left and grabbed a Burger King, whose staff actually gave us a much better experience. What a rubbish branch of an otherwise good chain.

It took less to get towed than getting a pizza here. Pizza was alright but expect about 17 pounds for a normal sized pizza

Disappointing (Friday of a bank holiday weekend). It was busy but there weren’t enough staff or perhaps not enough staff with sufficient experience. Once the food arrived it was good and staff were very polite despite the pressure they were under.

a great and friendly place to eat. have to admit, i have little expectation from restaurants at services and assume it is focused on the quick passing trade. But the service, food and atmosphere at Pizza Express was great. Fantastic and attentive service from Claudiu Dumitrascu

Pizza was nice but the polenta chips was bland as anything. It took them to take me 12 mins to get me a bill !

Quick service, tasty gluten free mushroom pizza, lots of toppings, pleasant staff and decor looked good. Only negative was the £16.45 price tag

Very nice and helpful staff. The young lady who welcomed us outside was very helpful and pleasant.

Receptionist lies about offer they had. Very unacceptable from a big brand like this. Awful service

Quick service which is what we needed at a service station. Also got Blue Light discount 😊

My partner and I ordered a pizza and a classic lasagna and two drinks, the prices were a little exaggerated, a 330ml Coke €4.50, that is, a can, the lasagna that cost us about €20 is the same as the supermarket one and The pizza was delicious but just as thin as a taco cake, in conclusion we got all this for €50 and we were left hungry.

Excellent staff, very attentive. Good food. So glad we were able to stop

Friendly atmosphere and service from Claudiu Dumitrascu. Food was great but expensive for lunch

Food is fine. Hygiene is substandard. Dirty glasses and cutlery. Staff is not professional nor friendly. We won't come here anymore.

They were really busy which is nice to see, but not enough staff!! There were two servers, then one ended up in the kitchen!! Leaving one poor girl run off her feet and dealing with disgruntled clientèle on her own. Tables with young families who can be entertained for only so long we're waiting ridiculous amounts of time for their orders. I was on my own. Ordered a Lasagne which took over half an hour to come and was not great! The toilets were grubby with no toilet paper. I am often at this welcome break, but doubt I shall be visiting this Pizza Express again

Filthy restaurant. Pizzas soggy and not up to the usual standard

When there recently and honestly I can say it’s a 10/10 experience. The service was wonderful, the server was enthusiastic and welcoming. Excellent tasting food with very quick service. Would definitely recommend to anyone who has a weakness for some good Italia cuisine.

Lovely place with great atmosphere. Our server Natalie was very pleasant and advised what we can have from the menu. Food was delicious.

I ordered the pizza with extra chicken but ultimately I didn't get it. My partner had the calzone with wilted salad. At the end of service the room was almost empty but the waitress was not at all responsive. Once pizza was finished we waited at least 30 minutes for the desert menu.

We shan't be going back. We ordered our food, didn't get asked about dough sticks with our salad. We couldn't get onto one of our Pizza Express apps, my dough balls arrived, barely warm, I am used to them nearly burning my fingers. My husband didn't have cutlery, he got them off another table. When our main course arrived, we still had our starter plates and again my husband didn't have cutlery and got some from another table himself. On my pizza I had green olives on it and they're usually black. Overall it just felt much unlike most Pizza Express restaurants we've been to. Service was the absolute minimum

Big Pizza Express fan but everything about this place disappointed. Food was poor. Service was slow and staff couldn’t care less. Give this place a miss.

Very nice service from Natalia & the food was really good if a little slow in arriving. Excellent service from the manager, Bosnik. I left my handbag there & he kept it safe until I could collect it the next day. He was genuinely welcoming & we would certainly go there again if in the area.

Was more expensive that the restaurants on the high street

the staff were terrible wanted us out before we got in . 45 minutes wait for food, he said , but we were hungry, so we went in. Took orders, including drinks. Okay, we knew we would wait for food but drinks as well? After

Really enjoy coming here. Nice ambience. Attentive team. Great, fresh food. Zoltan was really amazing with our little boy. Will come back.

Amazing food as always and great service from the team. Very attentive and would definitely come back again. Keep it up!

Lovely vibes and delicious food!! Came here while travelling and got seated right away and attended to right away!

Experience was a a lot better than I previous trips here.

Fantastic food and wine as well as very attentive service. What more could you need?

It was OK, food came quickly but the mains arrived before we had even finished the starters. Pizzas were nice and the kids menu was enjoyed by both my children

I had to wait ages for my pizza even though it wasn’t very busy. I saw my pizza sat in the side for quite a few minutes until it was brought to me so of course then it was not hot. The pizza wasn’t how it had been described- I have had this pizza many times and always enjoyed it - I did not enjoy this one. Even when the waiter asked how it was and I told him it wasn’t as I expected nothing was done. The waiter serving me was rude and bad tempered! I will not go there again. It really was not like the pizza express I am used to - and I have been to many

The best Pizza Express restaurants have character. The one on the Basingstoke ring road shows it doesn't come from a glamorous location (seriously, it's worth a visit!) Sadly this one was not in that league when we visited. Service was fast once we ordered but slow to get to order and performed without any warmth. Food was brand standard, which means good!

Stopped in for lunch, our server Claudio was a delight so helpful

Worst experience of a pizza express. There were 3 tables when we got in and it still took us 5 minutes to get seated. All the food was wrong or undercooked. They didn’t tell us which menu items were unavailable until we already ordered them. Pizza was severely undercooked, the dough was basically still raw. Halloumi bites were freezing on the inside, and then when we complained he just stuck his finger in them right in front of us. We also ordered a brownie, to which we had cinnamon put on which isn’t even part of the presentation. Won’t be back

We were wary going here after reading the reviews, but location-wise it was exactly what we needed so we decided to risk it. So glad we did - service was quick, food was delicious and overall we had a lovely family lunch altogether. They have a full vegan menu too! I've knocked it down from 5 to 4 stars purely because the coffee machine was out of order so we had to go across to Starbucks for a coffee afterwards. But otherwise no complaints and we would happily return.

Terrible service very slow considering it was empty, food was poorly cooked and presented with many ingredients missing

Convinced me that I never want to go to a pizza express again. Poor food, overpriced, but all the flies and midges you ever didn't want

Excellent service, as Indians we came for lunch on diwali and were served by a lovely Indian lady (assuming) who was polite and apologetic for the food delays even though my companions were slightly rude about the long wait for food. Working on Diwali as an Indian and maintaining great service despite unkindness is admirable, I commend pizzaexpress Oxford on this choice of staff.

Best pizzis in the UK. wish they would come to Germany.

Food was great! Service was great but at lot of flies about the place while we were eating which put us off slightly.

I feels very bad customer service at this restaurant. It’s takes ages to take order and when we ask about the bill they don’t even give any response for a while as the restaurant was not too busy at that moment. K feel it as a really bad experience.

There was a long wait to get seats and the waiter spilled sauce on my colleague. The pizza itself was good however.

Arrived and stood unacknowledged for 10 minutes (whilst the waitress stood next to us on her phone). A random man (who turned out to be another waiter/manager?) physically pushed my bf out of the way to put menus on the desk at which point we asked whether there was a table. He said no then walked off. On his return circuit around the room, we then asked him how long it’d be - he shrugged and said maybe 15-30 minutes. 5 minutes later he pointed at a table and told us to sit there. The table was covered in half drunk drinks and used napkins - at this point we left and went and got KFC. Genuinely never experienced anything like it in my life. Avoid like the plague.

The food we had was fine. Sadly our first choices were not available, it would have been better to have been told that before we were seated.